Blue Jackets Look To Tie Franchise Record with Ninth Road Win

The Blue Jackets have a chance to rewrite their record books this weekend.

Columbus will travel to Los Angeles for a 4 p.m. game on Saturday and Anaheim for a 4 p.m. game on Sunday, sitting on eight road wins.

The franchise record is nine, set in 2000-01, with a 9-24-8 record.

It is not a secret that Columbus has had is fair share of trouble on the road, posting a 42-129-24 mark in 195 road games. The club struggled to begin the season with a 3-14-0 start away from Columbus, but has posted a 5-7-2 mark away from Nationwide Arena over their last 14 on the road.

Including this weekend’s games, Columbus has 10 more chances to raise the franchise mark of nine road wins.

Nikolai Zherdev has been one of the players leading the road surge, scoring 11-13-24 on the road, which leads the team. Rick Nash has scored 12 goals which also paces the team. In fact, Nash has already recorded 20 road points after scoring 22 in all of 2003-04.

In addition, Sergei Fedorov has scored 2-13-15 in 22 games on the road and Bryan Berard has scored 8-9-17 on the road with a team-leading eight power play goals.

Pascal Leclaire, meanwhile, has two of his five wins on the road, while posting a 3.15 GAA and a .916 SV% on the road.

The club will have its hands full against the Los Angeles Kings, who have gone 2-1-0 against the Jackets this season. The two games played at Nationwide Arena were wild, as Columbus set a season high and tied a franchise mark with a 7-4 win on Feb. 8, three months after the Kings handed the Jackets an 8-2 defeat on Nov. 13.

The other time the clubs met this season, the Kings prevailed, 3-1 on Oct. 16. The 1-2-0 mark against Los Angeles this season pushes the Jackets’ all-time record against the club to 9-9-1 in 19 meetings. The club is 6-4-0 at Nationwide Arena and 3-5-1 at Staples Center. The Jackets last victory in Los Angeles was an overtime win on Feb. 11, 2004.

Jason Chimera leads the club with 3-1-4 against LA this season.

Meanwhile, the Kings’ Alexander Frolov (4-2-6) and Craig Conroy (3-2-5) lead the Kings charge against Columbus.

Los Angeles is 33-23-5 on the season, holding onto seventh place in the Western Conference.